Monday, March 17, 2008

The New Ballard Target, opening in 2008!

I remember when I was a kid seeing some cartoon about a lady who refused to ever sell her little house to big corporations and they just built these huge tall buildings around her...I'm really glad that sort of thing never happens in real life. (thanks new Ballard Target!)

Do take note of the blue handicap street parking sign.

Well dear readers, it has been a while, hasn't it? I'm still not entirely certain if more than say 5 of you ever read this blog, but I do take it seriously and I feel as though I have let you down by not posting for a couple weeks.

Sorry about that. Perhaps it's just that February has been a dreary month and my writing has suffered because of it. I admit to being a little SAD, even if i don't actually believe in such things. (Seasonal Affective...please...) Of course it is hard to argue with the suicide numbers from Norway, right? But that could be more the isolation and cold then the darkness. Shoot in any case don’t worry, I'm not that SAD, I have just been tired/sick and had plenty of post big show let down kind of stuff. OH woe is me! Okay, enough of this tripe, I apologize.

Let me get to the reviews, as I am not sure what else I have to talk about today....

In film:

10,000 BC Dear god do not see this movie. Sean and I went, as we hold strong to the rule that we will see anything at the Cinerama. Anything. This movie was laughable. Absolutely ripped off Spartacus, Braveheart, Apocalyptico, and Conan the Barbarian...and none of those movies are exactly full of originality in the first place. The mammoth sequence in the beginning was okay, that's about the only compliment I can give it. 1 Molo

The Simpsons Movie (on DVD) Take any 3 random episodes and watch them and they will be better. Far better. I'd like to slap the writers and the people who said that this was actually good. Okay, maybe not slap, but you get the idea. It was a really long boring episode. 1 Molo

The Bourne Ultimatum (dvd) Better than I expected-basically the action romp that Bourne delivered in the previous 2 flicks, but taken up a small notch from the last one. I can't say that secret CIA black ops training stuff is all that intriguing anymore, there have been too many stories along those lines, but bourne is light and fun and has good action sequences and enough solid acting to keep on paying attention, even if 2 days later you don't remember ever watching the film. 3 molos

The Darjeeling Limited (dvd) Lovely garbage. Poor Wes seems to just want to be a fashion photographer these days. He creates great setting and lovely stylized sequences, but has no story left to tell. In fact, every single movie he has done since Rushmore has had less and less story. Less dialog even. Lots of shots of woeful looking but happy/successful bourgeois people. Oh how this movie made me sad. The characters are so poorly developed it's like we are expected to love them simply because they are interesting looking people. Or because they are famous actors maybe. The reason that everyone said that short at the beginning of the film was better (Hotel Che...something) than the feature is simply that the characters actually interact with each other and have clear motives and there is drama there. I think Wes drastically needs to start working with writers outside of his circle or do a good book adaptation. He clearly has run out of stories to sell and cant get by on quirky. 2 molos

In Music:

Vampire Weekend Self-titled These young Columbia University kids are undeniably the official certified Next Big Thing of the moment. There have appeared on the cover of all sorts of mags already and are in extreme danger of blowing their own popularity up before they even get to that successful level. I was reluctant to pick up this album...but then i listened to it at the store and golly if it wasn't just too light, fun, fluffy and originally enough sounding that I had to join the hipster masses. It's young, thin but pretty indie rock at it's best. Kind of a good follow-up to Clay Your Hands Say Yeah's first record, but less groovy. My main complaint is that they have a song about a girl who happens to be named Bryn, who is from Kansas as well. Clearly not the same B of my distant past, but I little unfortunate all the same. Oh well. 4 Molos

Ghostland ObservatoryRobotique Mystique (or Boutique or whatever it's called) The new one from these guys, who are amazing in concert, sounds just weird and boring. Doesn't have that energy they really need in their music. I only listened to some of it, but I was not interested. 2 Molos

Nada SurfLucky Still one of my favorite traditional and dare-I-say formulaic pop/rock bands, the new Nada Surf does not disappoint. It's good, solid all the way through, and there are even some gems on the bonus EP. Better than their last effort I'd say. Nada Surf does sincere earnest rock so well. I enjoy it. 3.5 molos